


The Bolt from the Blue

by rorywritesstuff



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Novel, Revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 11:23:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rorywritesstuff/pseuds/rorywritesstuff
Summary: After his team captain is murdered, superpowered policeman Billy Kaplan is understandably shaken. He takes some time off work and tries to find things to take his mind off it: one of those things is Teddy Altman, a mysterious young student who helps Billy see the fun in the world again.I posted this story on another site with characters with different names. I'm adapting it into a fanfic, because I am the opposite of E.L. James.





	1. Cassie

All in all, the whole thing took less than seven minutes: the shopkeeper pressed the alarm at 9:17, the squad arrived at 9:19, Veronica fled the scene at 9:21 and Cassie was dead by 9:23.

"Can you move faster?" Angelica asked as Veronica furiously jabbed at the wires with a pair of miniature tweezers.  
'Do you want to try?' Veronica felt tempted to snap back, but she needed to concentrate. The device she held in her hands could stop the police from arriving by portal, and indeed should already be serving that function, but, like all the blockers Veronica made, it had chosen the worst moment to stop functioning. Angelica had seen the blocker’s light go off, yelled at Veronica that she couldn't invent things for shit and the shopkeeper had used that momentary distraction to press the alarm under the counter, and now they had mere moments before-  
A swirling oval of bright blue and dark red light spun into existence in the centre of the shop. A portal. Angelica swore, the shopkeeper laughed and Veronica threw the device at his head. He ducked, and it smashed against the wall as the Squad began to pour out of the portal. Veronica touched the gun in her waistband and started to formulate a plan.  
The moment the first figure stepped out of the portal Angelica lunged at them. She looped her arms around their neck and swung herself around, dragging them to the floor with her beneath, a perfect human shield in place. The shopkeeper ran out screaming, and Veronica dived behind the counter.  
A second Squad member stepped out, a woman with short blonde hair and a distinct air of authority. She drew a gun from her belt and pointed it at Angelica's head, "let her go."  
Veronica scrambled desperately in the rubble behind the counter, sifting through wires and bits of twisted plastic, frantically searching for the main component.  
A third Squad member stepped out- the air around him was hazy, and a short trail of shimmering ether lead from his fists to the portal. He was the teleporter. Veronica's hands came across the piece she was looking for just as he turned and spotted her. He made to say something and she launched herself at him, leaping clean over the counter top and across to him. She rammed the component- a microchip with a tiny round battery attached and two short copper wires sticking out- into his neck, making sure the metal connected with his skin. There was a buzz as technology met flesh. He gasped and slapped his hand to his neck, but his connection to the portal was already broken and with a rush of air the shining oval disappeared. Veronica hit the floor and then started crawling towards the door.   
On the other side of the shop, Angelica snarled at the woman pointing the gun at her, "Go on then, fire!" She tightened her grip on her human shield.  
Cassie grimaced, "Daria," she was addressing the woman in Angelica's grip, "do it. Use your power."  
Daria whimpered.  
"Now!"  
"I'm sorry," Daria whispered, and then her eyes turned black. Angelica screamed in agony and her hands flew off Daria's throat as if it was burning hot. Daria rolled off of her and staggered over to Cassie, the redhead. Angelica was left convulsing on the floor. The teleporter, Billy, was still spasming under the effects of the microchip as Veronica reached the front door, sprang to her feet and ran out.  
Cassie went after her immediately. Daria ran over to Billy and ripped the chip from his neck. He groaned and looked like he would fall to his knees but Daria steadied him.  
"Billy? Billy?"  
She clicked in front of his face, his eyes snapped into focus.  
"Billy, Cassie's gone after the other one; she'll need back up."  
"Right," He sprinted out the door.  
Daria turned to Angelica, who was prostrate and moaning in the corner of the shop, her eyes closed and her voice choked.   
"I really am sorry," Daria muttered, as she reached for the radio on her belt.

Outside, Billy looked around wildly for them and caught a glimpse of Cassie ducking into an alleyway. He pelted towards it. It was only about two hundred yards. He shoved past a bewildered man and jumped over a fallen bin. He could hear someone shouting- probably Cassie- as he came up on the turn.  
A shot rang out.  
The world seemed to slow, but Billy kept on running. Then he stopped- as much as he tried to fight it, to run to Cassie and assist in any way that he could, his training kicked in. He stopped right at the edge of the alleyway, just before the turn, and then leant round for a quick assessment, ready to retreat in case of further fire.  
But both guns were on the ground. Veronica's was lying far away from her- she'd obviously thrown it after firing- still smoking slightly. Cassie's was lying right next to her, her fingers mere millimetres from the handle. She was staring up at the sky with a strangely detached expression, her mouth shut but her eyes wide open and glassy. There was a hole in her left breast and blood was oozing out.  
Veronica was screaming hysterically, kneeling on the floor, her fingers flexing with shock. Billy stopped, and tried very hard to remember what to do in the case of a Squad member being shot. He reached for the radio on his belt, pressed the button heard the static and heard himself say 'Officer down.' He knew he needed to repeat it, but a small part of him thought that this would seal Cassie's fate; that if he left it unsaid, she would magically jump up, the wound vanishing from sight and the bullet travelling backwards into the gun. But he repeated it anyway. Because that was procedure. Because he couldn't do anything else.   
Because Cassie was dead.


	2. Teddy

Teddy was just thinking about going home when the stranger approached him; the party was far from over, there were still enough people in the room whom he knew well enough to talk to and, best of all, he didn't have to get up early tomorrow. But he just wasn't into it. Some part of him wasn't in the mood- was refusing to get drunk or even sway idly to the music. As often happened at parties when left alone for even a minute, he felt crushingly self-conscious, aware of his every minute action and uncertain of how it would make him look to the others in the room, desperate to appear nonchalant while certain everyone was judging him.  
Had he looked around the room, he would have seen Billy, now bedecked in civilian garb of a ratty old brown t-shirt and some faded black jeans. He would probably have noticed Billy, because he was staring at Teddy fixedly. They were in almost polar opposite positions: Billy knew almost no one at the party and he had to be up excruciatingly early in the morning.  
But he couldn't even think about leaving yet. First off, he lived alone, an arrangement that had suited him fine until Benji's death. But he now found himself sleeping on Daria's sofa five times a week. She was out of town this evening and so he had begged an old school friend, Claire, currently doing her PhD, to be allowed to stay with her. She had invited him to the party- a friend of a friend's, she said- and he was so enjoying being surrounded by people he didn't know, who didn't know about Veronica and had never met Benji, who didn’t realise he was grieving and thus wouldn’t pity him, that to leave would be stupid. And then he had spotted the man sitting by the window- slender, one leg placed up on the large sill, the knee tucked against his chest- and he realised that what he really wanted at that moment was some sex.   
He stared at this man for at least a full minute before he saw that he was readying to move- to perhaps disappear forever from view- and Billy realised that he had to make his move now.  
He did not usually approach people- all of his boyfriends and lovers up until now had made the first move, even if he had been interested in them for some time- but then Billy had seen the dead body of someone fourteen months and six days younger than him and realised that this attitude was stupid. Billy managed to reach the man before he'd even stood; it was then that he realised he hadn’t a clue what to say.   
"Hello.” This was all Billy could think of for the moment.   
"Hi," the man replied and Billy could tell from his expression that he didn't really like talking to strangers.  
"I'm Billy." He shook the man's hand vigorously.  
"Teddy."  
"I don't really know anyone here." This was the first thing that it occurred to Billy to say- to firmly establish his relationship to everyone else at the party, and maybe slightly explain why he had approached Teddy in the first place.  
"Ok," Teddy glanced around the room- there were at least four people in his direct line of vision whom he considered friends, "Me neither."  
"So, what do you do?"  
"Politics. But I'm thinking of changing." Teddy had had this conversation a million times in the last few months, but this time it didn't seem quite so repetitive.  
"What?"  
"I'm a first year." This seemed self-explanatory to Teddy; it took Billy a second to realise he was talking about university.  
"Jesus, you're eighteen?"  
"Nineteen. Why, how old are you?"  
Very, very briefly, Billy considered lying, but then that seemed creepy. "I'm twenty five."  
"You're a mature student?"  
"Nope."  
"Doing a PhD?"  
"No."  
"So, what do you do?"  
He paused, minutely. "I'm with the police. But I'm coming up to the end of my service." This was always a controversial thing to tell people, and the last part wasn't even technically true yet.  
"So you're a superhero?" Teddy's face lit up in a smile.  
"Kind of, I guess." Billy found he was smiling, too.  
"That's really cool."  
"Thank you." Then Billy remembered, "Were you leaving?"  
Teddy paused for just a second, "No."


End file.
